Description

Dark and funny.

John ("My father named me after a toilet!") wrestles with the certainty that no one really knows him -- not in his miserable home, and certainly not at school. It's true that no one can guess his hidden thoughts, which are hilarious, razor-sharp observations about lust, love, tubas, algebra, everything. And then there's his home: his father ran off years ago, so he's being raised by his mother, who works long hours, and by her boyfriend, whom John calls "the man who is not and never will be my father." This man is his enemy, an abusive disciplinarian who seems to want to kill John and, in a horrible final confrontation, nearly succeeds.

Moving, wholly involving, original, and emotionally true, You Don't Know Me is a multilayered novel that presents a winning portrait of an understandably angst-ridden adolescent.

About the author

David Klass is the author of many young adult novels, including Dark Angel and You Don't Know Me. He is also a Hollywood screenwriter, having written more than twenty-five action screenplays, including Kiss the Girls, starring Morgan Freeman and Ashley Judd, Walking Tall, starring The Rock, and Desperate Measures, starring Michael Keaton and Andy Garcia. Klass grew up in a family that loved literature and theater--his parents were both college professors and writers--but he was a reluctant reader, preferring sports to books. But he started loving the adventure stories his parents would bring home from the library--particularly Jack London, Robert Louis Stevenson and Alexandre Dumas. After his sister twice won a story contest in Seventeen magazine, Klass decided he would win it too, and when he was a senior in high school, he did, publishing his first story, "Ringtoss," in the magazine. He studied at Yale University, where he won the Veech Award for Best Imaginative Writing. He taught English in Japan, and wrote his first novel, The Atami Dragons, about that experience. He now lives in New York with his wife and two small children.

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A Google User

YOU DON'T KNOW ME Klass (Screen Test, 1997, etc.) has woven a captivating first-person narrative with an original voice. John is convinced that no one knows him. Not his kind-of-friends, not the teachers in his "anti-school" ("School is for learning and this place is for being stupid"), and certainly not his mother, who just might marry this boyfriend, the one that beats him when she isn't looking. John's

this book is about a boy names John John basis trouble in school and life he has a very sharp observation about love and a tuba that is not really a tuba and miss face In about glory hallelujah she's the prettiest girl in school but but he tells himself and she's ugly just in case you won't go out this is a great book

Sandra Villarreal minor

Review: You Don't Know Me I truly believe in the creation of fiction when reality becomes too much to bear. Seeing it through John's eyes was heart wrenching....and as a teacher eye opening as well. A student requested that I read this....and I am glad I did.

Maya

Review: You Don't Know Me This was a very interesting story about a boy with a dysfunctional family. He has an abusive step-father and a mother that he doesn't have a very good relationship with.

Critic reviews

A Google User

Kirkus - Jane Doe

YOU DON'T KNOW ME Klass (Screen Test, 1997, etc.) has woven a captivating first-person narrative with an original voice. John is convinced that no one knows him. Not his kind-of-friends, not the teachers in his "anti-school" ("School is for learning and this place is for being stupid"), and certainly not his mother, who just might marry this boyfriend, the one that beats him when she isn't looking. John's

this book is about a boy names John John basis trouble in school and life he has a very sharp observation about love and a tuba that is not really a tuba and miss face In about glory hallelujah she's the prettiest girl in school but but he tells himself and she's ugly just in case you won't go out this is a great book

Review: You Don't Know Me I truly believe in the creation of fiction when reality becomes too much to bear. Seeing it through John's eyes was heart wrenching....and as a teacher eye opening as well. A student requested that I read this....and I am glad I did.

Review: You Don't Know Me This book does not really appeal to me. This book shows how a boy in bad situations thinks and follows John, a boy who's father abandoned him and is replaced with a bad step-father. As John's life in school gets worse the reader's perspective grants interesting insight into people's minds.

Review: You Don't Know Me I thought the book was very good because it made you think and question why the step-father didn't like John. I thought the ending of the book was very good because after all that John had gone through, it was good to see that John can move on with his life and hopefully have a good life.

Review: You Don't Know Me I thought that this book was very well written and it had an interesting plot. It kept me interested and i think it had a good moral. I would recommend this book to anyone who likes a interesting book that keeps you interested. :D

Review: You Don't Know Me Ok this is also young adult but this book actually inspired me to try a different writing style and I think it stuck with me to this day. Maybe not a good thing, but I appreciate this book.

Review: You Don't Know Me This book was very different then other books i read and in general. It wasn't different in a bad way though. I liked the start a lot and it really crabbed me in. I would recommend this book to anyone that wants to take a break from what they normally read.

Review: You Don't Know Me This book is about a boy who gets abused by his step dad, and his real mom knows nothing about it until finally he gets the courage to tell his teacher and report his stepdad. I think this book was one of my favorite books, but a really sad book. It definitely has a happy ending too it.

Review: You Don't Know Me I understand John's feeling that no one knows him. I've felt that way myself. But I found him to be frustrating. Perhaps because I'm an adult female and not an adolescent male. There was cleverness in his imaginings, and a few times I laughed out loud only to be pulled back into the teenaged angst.

Review: You Don't Know Me Years later it still remains of my favorite books. Just get by the weird cover, title, and odd prose and I swear this book is worth it in the end. (re-reading it for a paper I need to do for my YA lit class).

Review: You Don't Know Me if you liked 'perks of being a wallflower' and/or the catcher in the rye, you'll love this. What a wonderful character with a brilliant mind and ace imagination. I laughed, giggled, felt sad and ...

Review: You Don't Know Me The title of this book is what first caught my attention. I picked it up and check it out, and I am glad I did. This book was an enjoyable book. I was expecting this book to be depressing and in a way ...

Review: You Don't Know Me *spoilers :) Powerful story. About a boy who is physically abused by his stepfather. He constantly wonders if people really know him. He gives off a lot of signs that something is wrong at home. His ...

Review: You Don't Know Me Even from the cover this book caught my interest. By the first chapter I couldn't put it down. I felt like I was part of the characters life as he worded the story around me. The story felt real and ...

Review: You Don't Know Me Disturbingly good story of an abused young man. The point of view is what is most distinctive. I won't tell you to whom he is writing, but it makes the story all the more poignant. It reads fast and ...

Review: You Don't Know Me I'm gonna start this review by saying: I love John. He's hysterical. And the other characters were great, too. Other than that, fantastic voice and style. Truly, it was like nothing I've ever read ...

Review: You Don't Know Me Many things went through my mind throughout this book. Especially the impact of what it's like in a household of abuse. Seeing as it is the main topic of the book, one can assume that John as a ...

Review: You Don't Know Me I read this book from a cart in an English classroom. I am always searching for YA books that I can read and share with students. This book stood out, I read through it in two days and at times you ...

Review: You Don't Know Me The book pissed me off, the main character had some issues with lying basically through out the whole story. The right after the events that happened he told you that's not how it happened. but this ...

Review: You Don't Know Me You don't know me is a great book for people who can understand things that are challenging. I think the meaning of the book is a boy who isn't understood so he tells himself that they don't really ...

Review: You Don't Know Me I read this when I was just a little kid do I remember it? not really.. i do recall having a hard time trying to get through it. Is it because i was a kid and didn't really like to read? maybe so ...

Similar

Ketchvar III's mission is simple: travel to Planet Earth, inhabit the body of an average teenager, and determine if the human race should be annihilated. And so Ketchvar--who, to human eyes, looks just like a common snail--crawls into the brain of one Tom Filber and attempts to do his analysis. At first glance, Tom appears to be the perfect specimen--fourteen years old, good health, above average intelligence. But it soon becomes apparent that Tom Filber may be a little too average--gawky, awkward, and utterly abhorred by his peers. An alien within an alien's skin, Ketchvar quickly finds himself wrapped up in the daily drama of teenage life--infuriating family members, raging bullies, and undeniably beautiful next-door neighbors. And the more entangled Ketchvar becomes, the harder it is to answer the question he was sent to Earth to resolve: Should the Sandovinians release the Gagnerian Death Ray and erase the human species for good? Or is it possible that Homo sapiens really are worth saving?

Wickedly wry and hysterically skewed, David Klass's take on teen life on our fabulously flawed Planet Earth is an engrossing look at true friends, truer enemies, and awkward alien first kisses.

Stuck on Earth is a 2011 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Jack Danielson has spent the last year saving the oceans and the Amazon, attempting to fulfill a prophecy that was written before his birth. Now he's more than ready to get back to life as a typical teenager and spend some quality time with his girlfriend, P.J. Too bad the world has other plans. Wrenched away once more from those he knows and loves, Jack is thrust through time to the fiery deserts of the future and the frozen tundra of the Arctic, battling cyborgs, zombie warlocks, and scorpions the size of tanks. At least he has Gisco--everyone's favorite surly telepathic canine--to keep him company, not to mention the Ninja Babe, Eko. And he will finally be reunited with the parents who abandoned him so long ago, in order that he might save their dying planet. But it isn't only a race to save Earth. As the clock ticks down before the final confrontation with the dreaded Dark Lord, Jack must decide once and for all who he really is--prince of the future or humble human of the present--and choose between the two women who love him.

In this thrilling finale to the Caretaker Trilogy, the end of life as we know it has arrived, and history will be made--or lost--at the hands of one young hero.

A taut psychological thriller for teens Seventeen-year-old Jeff thought he would never again have to deal with his older brother, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence. But after six years, Troy’s sentence has been overturned on a technicality and he is released from prison. He returns to a family deeply divided about having him back home. Jeff can’t forget how his life was disrupted by his brother, how his family had to move to another state and start over. Still, his parents believe things will be different now. But Troy’s return makes a mess of Jeff ’s life – at home, at school, and with his girlfriend. When Jeff ’s rival on the soccer field turns up missing, Jeff suspects Troy is involved, and he sets out to prove it. But nothing could prepare Jeff for what happens as he gets closer to the truth.With unexpected flashes of humor, David Klass once again gives readers a gripping, multilayered novel about good and evil and the powerful bonds of family. Dark Angel is a 2006 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

His mother is not his mother. His father is not his father. But if Jack hadn't broken the high school rushing record that night, he never would have known and nothing would have changed. He'd just be going out for pizza, playing football, trying yet again to score with his girlfriend, P.J. But he did break the record. He appeared on the news. And now they've found him. Jack plunges into a space-time-bending game of survival with no way out. The rules are shrouded in secrets. But one thing he learns fast: Trust no one. After centuries of abuse, the earth is dying, and it's up to Jack to reverse the decline before the Turning Point, when nothing will ever be the same again. Beaten into shape by a ninja babe and a huge telepathic man's best friend, Jack hurtles across the ocean to save the future from the present and to solve the mystery of his purpose. Exactly who, or what, is Firestorm, and what does it have to do with Jack? And what comes next when everything you have ever known turns out to be wrong?

In the first book of the Caretaker Trilogy, readers are taken on an electrifying, fast-paced adventure of hunting truth, all in the name of staying alive.

In Firestorm, the first book of the Caretaker Trilogy, seventeen-year-old Jack Danielson saved the world's oceans, but at great personal cost - his parents were killed and everything he knew and believed in was turned upside down. Now Jack has come home to see P.J., his girlfriend and sole remaining touchstone. But she's missing, and blame falls on Jack. On the run with Gisco, his crafty canine sidekick, Jack is literally caught up in a whirlwind as he travels to the heart of darkness to rescue P.J. - a journey that will bring him face-to-face with the father of his old nemesis, the colonel, aka the Dark Lord from the future. Jack's quest becomes all the more complicated as he discovers that the only person who can stop the Dark Lord is another time traveler, the wizard Kidah, who has disappeared in the present.

Book 2 of the Caretaker Trilogy mixes heart-racing adventure with an urgent ecological warning about the fragility of the world's rain forests and the importance of respect for indigenous peoples. Readers will be drawn into the vortex of the quest--whether or not they're familiar with Book 1.

As Joe Brickman heads into the fall of his senior year, he's looking forward to the soccer season, when he will captain the Lawndale team. And surely this will be the year when he and his neighbor Kristine stop teasing each other and begin dating. But scary, unpredictable things start happening at Lawndale High. It's hard to tell what touches off the storm. Is it the arrival of Antonio Silva, a.k.a. the Phenom, a Brazilian soccer star who transforms the Lawndale Braves into a contender, and in doing so clashes with football players? Is it the shake-up of the social order in the school, when the Phenom starts dating Kris, and soccer becomes the "in" sport? Is it the brutal humiliation of Joe's best friend, Ed "the Mouse" McBean, and is Ed planning on taking some dark revenge on the entire school? Perhaps it's all of these new twists, and something older. As violence and danger escalate and school officials clamp down with zero tolerance, Joe finds himself searching for the courage to break free from the forces that threaten to take him down with the home of the Braves.

In his powerful and timely new novel, David Klass dramatizes the many ways in which past violence returns to haunt the present.

Kendall is football town, and Jerry Downing is the high school's star quarterback, working to redeem himself after he nearly killed a girl in a drunk driving accident last year. Carla Jenson, lead reporter for the school newspaper's sports section, has recruited Jerry to co-author a blog chronicling the season from each of their perspectives. When Jerry's best friend on the team takes a hit too hard and gets hurt, Carla wonders publicly if injury in the game comes at too high a cost in a player's life--but not everyone in Kendall wants to hear it...

David Klass and Perri Klass's Second Impact is an action-packed story will resonate with readers who have been following recent news stories are football injuries.

Freshman Daniel Pratzer gets a chance to prove himself when the chess team invites him and his father to a weekend-long parent-child tournament. Daniel, thinking that his father is a novice, can't understand why his teammates want so badly for them to participate. Then he finds out the truth: as a teen, his father was one of the most promising young players in America, but the pressures of the game pushed him too far, and he had to give up chess to save his own life and sanity. Now, thirty years later, Mr. Pratzer returns to the game to face down an old competitor and the same dark demons that lurk in the corners of a mind stretched by the demands of the game. Daniel was looking for acceptance--but the secrets he uncovers about his father will force him to make some surprising moves himself, in Grandmaster by David Klass.

Connor is sure his best friend, Branwell, couldn't have hurt Branwell's baby half sister, Nikki. But Nikki lies in a coma, and Branwell is in a juvenile behavioral center, suspected of a horrible crime and unable to utter the words to tell what really happened. Connor is the only one who might be able to break through Branwell's wall of silence. But how can he prove Branwell didn't commit the unspeakable act of which he's accused — when Branwell can't speak for himself?

AJ Ashe isn't your typical seventeen-year-old vampire—as if there is such a thing! She's stuck in the middle of a huge fight between her two BFFs. Her ex-boyfriend—whom she's still totally in love with, by the way—is now her stepbrother. A former classmate—who, um, she may or may not have turned into a vampire—is stalking her. And now, apparently, the fate of humankind lies in her little undead hands. What ever happened to the good old days, when all a vampire girl had to worry about was the occasional zit and hiding her taste for blood?

His mother is not his mother. His father is not his father. But if Jack hadn't broken the high school rushing record that night, he never would have known and nothing would have changed. He'd just be going out for pizza, playing football, trying yet again to score with his girlfriend, P.J. But he did break the record. He appeared on the news. And now they've found him. Jack plunges into a space-time-bending game of survival with no way out. The rules are shrouded in secrets. But one thing he learns fast: Trust no one. After centuries of abuse, the earth is dying, and it's up to Jack to reverse the decline before the Turning Point, when nothing will ever be the same again. Beaten into shape by a ninja babe and a huge telepathic man's best friend, Jack hurtles across the ocean to save the future from the present and to solve the mystery of his purpose. Exactly who, or what, is Firestorm, and what does it have to do with Jack? And what comes next when everything you have ever known turns out to be wrong?

In the first book of the Caretaker Trilogy, readers are taken on an electrifying, fast-paced adventure of hunting truth, all in the name of staying alive.

Jack Danielson has spent the last year saving the oceans and the Amazon, attempting to fulfill a prophecy that was written before his birth. Now he's more than ready to get back to life as a typical teenager and spend some quality time with his girlfriend, P.J. Too bad the world has other plans. Wrenched away once more from those he knows and loves, Jack is thrust through time to the fiery deserts of the future and the frozen tundra of the Arctic, battling cyborgs, zombie warlocks, and scorpions the size of tanks. At least he has Gisco--everyone's favorite surly telepathic canine--to keep him company, not to mention the Ninja Babe, Eko. And he will finally be reunited with the parents who abandoned him so long ago, in order that he might save their dying planet. But it isn't only a race to save Earth. As the clock ticks down before the final confrontation with the dreaded Dark Lord, Jack must decide once and for all who he really is--prince of the future or humble human of the present--and choose between the two women who love him.

In this thrilling finale to the Caretaker Trilogy, the end of life as we know it has arrived, and history will be made--or lost--at the hands of one young hero.

In Firestorm, the first book of the Caretaker Trilogy, seventeen-year-old Jack Danielson saved the world's oceans, but at great personal cost - his parents were killed and everything he knew and believed in was turned upside down. Now Jack has come home to see P.J., his girlfriend and sole remaining touchstone. But she's missing, and blame falls on Jack. On the run with Gisco, his crafty canine sidekick, Jack is literally caught up in a whirlwind as he travels to the heart of darkness to rescue P.J. - a journey that will bring him face-to-face with the father of his old nemesis, the colonel, aka the Dark Lord from the future. Jack's quest becomes all the more complicated as he discovers that the only person who can stop the Dark Lord is another time traveler, the wizard Kidah, who has disappeared in the present.

Book 2 of the Caretaker Trilogy mixes heart-racing adventure with an urgent ecological warning about the fragility of the world's rain forests and the importance of respect for indigenous peoples. Readers will be drawn into the vortex of the quest--whether or not they're familiar with Book 1.

Ketchvar III's mission is simple: travel to Planet Earth, inhabit the body of an average teenager, and determine if the human race should be annihilated. And so Ketchvar--who, to human eyes, looks just like a common snail--crawls into the brain of one Tom Filber and attempts to do his analysis. At first glance, Tom appears to be the perfect specimen--fourteen years old, good health, above average intelligence. But it soon becomes apparent that Tom Filber may be a little too average--gawky, awkward, and utterly abhorred by his peers. An alien within an alien's skin, Ketchvar quickly finds himself wrapped up in the daily drama of teenage life--infuriating family members, raging bullies, and undeniably beautiful next-door neighbors. And the more entangled Ketchvar becomes, the harder it is to answer the question he was sent to Earth to resolve: Should the Sandovinians release the Gagnerian Death Ray and erase the human species for good? Or is it possible that Homo sapiens really are worth saving?

Wickedly wry and hysterically skewed, David Klass's take on teen life on our fabulously flawed Planet Earth is an engrossing look at true friends, truer enemies, and awkward alien first kisses.

Stuck on Earth is a 2011 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Kendall is football town, and Jerry Downing is the high school's star quarterback, working to redeem himself after he nearly killed a girl in a drunk driving accident last year. Carla Jenson, lead reporter for the school newspaper's sports section, has recruited Jerry to co-author a blog chronicling the season from each of their perspectives. When Jerry's best friend on the team takes a hit too hard and gets hurt, Carla wonders publicly if injury in the game comes at too high a cost in a player's life--but not everyone in Kendall wants to hear it...

David Klass and Perri Klass's Second Impact is an action-packed story will resonate with readers who have been following recent news stories are football injuries.

A taut psychological thriller for teens Seventeen-year-old Jeff thought he would never again have to deal with his older brother, a convicted murderer serving a life sentence. But after six years, Troy’s sentence has been overturned on a technicality and he is released from prison. He returns to a family deeply divided about having him back home. Jeff can’t forget how his life was disrupted by his brother, how his family had to move to another state and start over. Still, his parents believe things will be different now. But Troy’s return makes a mess of Jeff ’s life – at home, at school, and with his girlfriend. When Jeff ’s rival on the soccer field turns up missing, Jeff suspects Troy is involved, and he sets out to prove it. But nothing could prepare Jeff for what happens as he gets closer to the truth.With unexpected flashes of humor, David Klass once again gives readers a gripping, multilayered novel about good and evil and the powerful bonds of family. Dark Angel is a 2006 Bank Street - Best Children's Book of the Year.

Freshman Daniel Pratzer gets a chance to prove himself when the chess team invites him and his father to a weekend-long parent-child tournament. Daniel, thinking that his father is a novice, can't understand why his teammates want so badly for them to participate. Then he finds out the truth: as a teen, his father was one of the most promising young players in America, but the pressures of the game pushed him too far, and he had to give up chess to save his own life and sanity. Now, thirty years later, Mr. Pratzer returns to the game to face down an old competitor and the same dark demons that lurk in the corners of a mind stretched by the demands of the game. Daniel was looking for acceptance--but the secrets he uncovers about his father will force him to make some surprising moves himself, in Grandmaster by David Klass.

As Joe Brickman heads into the fall of his senior year, he's looking forward to the soccer season, when he will captain the Lawndale team. And surely this will be the year when he and his neighbor Kristine stop teasing each other and begin dating. But scary, unpredictable things start happening at Lawndale High. It's hard to tell what touches off the storm. Is it the arrival of Antonio Silva, a.k.a. the Phenom, a Brazilian soccer star who transforms the Lawndale Braves into a contender, and in doing so clashes with football players? Is it the shake-up of the social order in the school, when the Phenom starts dating Kris, and soccer becomes the "in" sport? Is it the brutal humiliation of Joe's best friend, Ed "the Mouse" McBean, and is Ed planning on taking some dark revenge on the entire school? Perhaps it's all of these new twists, and something older. As violence and danger escalate and school officials clamp down with zero tolerance, Joe finds himself searching for the courage to break free from the forces that threaten to take him down with the home of the Braves.

In his powerful and timely new novel, David Klass dramatizes the many ways in which past violence returns to haunt the present.

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